Chapter 2 - THE MISSING ENVELOPE
The paramedics moved fast.
Alexander stayed beside the stretcher until they wheeled Evelyn through the front doors. He wanted to climb into the ambulance, but Marcus caught his arm.
“Sir. If Mrs. Lane leaves, we may lose more than the assault case.”
Alexander looked over his shoulder.
Victoria stood between two guards near the staircase, no longer crying.
Her face had hardened.
“You’re really going to treat me like a criminal?” she asked.
“You are a criminal.”
“I lost my temper.”
“You pushed a seventy-two-year-old woman down a staircase.”
“She was trying to destroy us.”
Alexander stared at her. “There is no us.”
That landed.
Victoria’s mouth tightened.
Alexander walked to the coat closet and found Evelyn’s gray wool coat hanging where she always left it. He reached into the left pocket.
Nothing.
Right pocket.
Nothing.
He searched again.
“Marcus.”
The guard came over.
“My mother said there was something in here.”
Marcus checked the floor beneath the coat rack. “What?”
“I don’t know.”
Victoria laughed softly behind them.
Alexander turned.
“What’s funny?”
“Your mother loves mysteries,” Victoria said. “She probably wanted one last dramatic moment.”
Alexander crossed the lobby so quickly that both guards stiffened.
He stopped inches from her.
“Say one more disrespectful thing about my mother.”
Victoria lifted her chin, but fear flickered in her eyes.
“You think that video tells you everything?” she asked. “It doesn’t.”
“Then tell me.”
“She came here threatening me.”
“With what?”
Victoria hesitated.
That was enough.
Alexander looked at Marcus. “Call the police.”
Victoria jerked against the guards. “Alex!”
“You had your chance.”
Her panic became anger. “You don’t know what she found.”
Alexander froze.
The lobby went quiet again.
“What did she find?” he asked.
Victoria’s expression closed.
Marcus’s radio crackled.
“Sir,” a guard said through the speaker. “We reviewed the service corridor. Someone entered the coat closet twelve minutes before the fall.”
“Who?”
A pause.
“Grant Bell.”
Alexander’s stomach dropped.
Grant Bell was not a guest.
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He was Alexander’s chief financial officer.
And according to the building log, Grant Bell had not been inside the mansion all day.
